Tokaj

The specification dates written records of vine growing, and of the first underground cellars, to the 13th century; the national agency cites King Béla IV's charter of 1252 calling settlers near Sárospatak "vinitora". The first written mention of Tokaj wine is dated 1494 and the first mention of aszú wine to an inventory of the Garay family of 15 May 1571. In 1655 the Diet regulated harvests with aszú selection. In 1707 a national classification placed only Tokaj-Hegyalja in the first class. A decree of 1737 fixed the region's boundaries; the specification calls it the world's first origin regulation, while the agency calls it the second, after Chianti in 1716. A Russian purchasing commission supplied the tsar's court from 1733 to 1798. Phylloxera appeared in 1886 and destroyed 90% of the vines within ten years. The 1920 Treaty of Trianon cut off Szőlőske, Kistoronya and part of Sátoraljaújhely. A state wine combine ran the region from 1950 to 1990, UNESCO listed the landscape in 2002, and the 2004 wine law reserved the name Aszú for Tokaj.

The area lies between 48°7' and 48°30' N on the southern and south-eastern edge of the Zemplén Hills, the last foothills of the Carpathians, which shelter it from northern winds while warm air arrives from the Great Plain. It forms a V from Tokaj Hill, a 515 m dacite cone where the hills meet the plain, north-east for 40–50 km to Sátoraljaújhely; side basins open towards the Bodrog. Volcanic activity from about 15 to 9 million years ago left andesite, dacite, rhyolite and rhyolite tuff, so that three kinds of tuff debris can occur within 100 m. The agency names three soil types: compact soils from weathered volcanic rock, loess over the volcanic base, and loose rhyolite rock dust that holds little water. The specification puts loess on about 5% of the area and the vineyards at 100–300 m, with 10.8 °C, 525 mm of rain and the most frequent wind from the north-east. Cellars cut largely into tuff stay at 8–12 °C all year.

The specification describes Tokaj wines as greenish-yellow to deep amber, deepening with age and botrytis. Dry August and early September weather brings grapes to full ripeness and shrivelling; the wetter weather that usually follows opens the way for Botrytis cinerea. Nobly rotten berries lose much of their water and reach 55–65% sugar, while the fungus lowers acidity somewhat and adds honeyed, fresh or dried-fruit notes (lime blossom, acacia, apricot, quince). The document stresses a firm acid backbone: thanks to it, sweet wines with 100–250 g/l of sugar do not taste flat. It attributes mineral flavours in many wines to the volcanic bedrock and varied soils.

Version 10 of the specification (grapes harvested from 1 August 2025) permits Furmint, Hárslevelű, Kabar, Kövérszőlő, Sárgamuskotály and Zéta. It defines eight wine types: Eszencia, Aszú, Száraz and Édes Szamorodni, Fordítás, Máslás, late-harvest wine and white wine, plus bottle-fermented sparkling wine. Aszú is made by macerating hand-picked botrytised berries in must, fermenting must, new wine or wine of the same vintage; it needs at least 120 g/l residual sugar and at least 18 months in wooden barrels, and may be sold from 1 January of the third year after harvest. Puttony numbers from 3 to 6 may be stated, "6 puttonyos" only from 150 g/l. Eszencia is the free-run juice of aszú berries, with at least 450 g/l of sugar. Aszú berries must reach 45 refractometer per cent. Yields are 10 t/ha of grapes (70 hl/ha) for every type except white wine (14 t/ha) and Eszencia (2 t/ha of aszú berries). Sparkling wine spends at least 15 months in bottle, 24 if a vintage is stated.